The Republic Of Heaven
by Manlymanchorus
Summary: Now that all of my uploading troubles are over, I can get back to writing the story! Will ran down a long corridor, fourescent lights flashing over his head... (Chpt. 3)
1. Prologue

The Republic of Heaven  
  
Lord Asriel woke suddenly from his sleep. His dæmon stirred at his side as he looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. The last thing he remembered was the fight with Metatron, and Marisa, and. He stood up as he remembered these rocks, these crevices. Somehow he was at the top of the long ravine down into the abyss. But the abyss was no longer there. The Dust was no longer flowing down into nothingness. But how. He ran up the steep slope, up to the now deserted battlefield. Lying around were bodies of all different races, Gallivespians, Humans, and others, all dead. Exhausted and battered from the fight with Metatron, he laid down and fell into a stupor. * * *  
  
Will and Dr. Malone got back to her flat about 8:00 that night. "Well, here it is, Will. It isn't much, but make yourself at home." Will walked into the apartment. He didn't want to cry in front of this woman, but he could barely contain his tears on the walk from the botanic garden. The fruit in the clearing, the realization that they would have to leave each other, the bench in the garden, his last kiss with Lyra, closing the window, breaking the knife, it was all too much. He walked in, sat down on the couch and began to weep. Mary said nothing, but she walked past him into the kitchen, poured two glasses of water and sat down next to him. "Will, I know it's hard, but follow Lyra's advice: 'I know it hurts, but you have to accept it and go on'. It's what she would have wanted. I'm sure she wouldn't want you to be sitting here crying when you could be worrying about your mother or what to do about the man you killed." "You've got to keep going," Kirjava, his dæmon, added. "It hurts for me too, Will. Pantalaimon and I were like one, and now we are separated, but we have to live our lives." "Why did this have to happen?" He said through thick sobs. "I was in love with her. I felt like everything would be perfect if only the two of us could stay together forever. I know that feeling will never fade. I love her! She is me!" With that he started to cry even more, and Mary on the back and left Kirjava to comfort him. He will recover in time, she thought. At the moment, even though her head was still spinning with the events of the past weeks, she turned her attention towards her escape, and how she was going to explain it. Her dæmon was just starting to become visible all the time, and the two were getting to know one another.  
  
* * *  
  
"This is a type of metal that we've never seen before," the scientist called out. "It is stronger than anything else that exists. One edge of it is sharp enough to cut anything, and the other. Well, I'm not quite sure what the other does. It's sharper than the other, but its edge is infinite, so I can't say what it does." "What do you mean?" Father Carlos said very quietly. "I requisitioned you because you are the best. Now despite what has happened, I assure you the church is still very strong, and I do have power to give you paradise or make your life and your afterlife hell. Find out what that other side does, and don't contact me until you do." The scientist turned back to his work, analyzing the piece of rock. I will find out what this is, he thought. He had no idea what was really going on though.  
  
* * *  
  
Well, that's the first part/chapter. Feel free to give me any beef or ideas. 


	2. Chapter 1

Yay! Disclaimer time: I don't own this story; it all belongs to Phillip Pullman and whoever published the books, but read it anyway. Sorry that I haven't been able to write this for a few weeks. This is just chapter 1, with plenty left to come. Chapter 1: Boarding School  
  
The trees, sky, and land rushed by. The trees were lush and tall, fertilized by rain that had just swept through the valley, and strengthened by time and wind and cold winters. The sky was clear and blue with myriads of swirling clouds, some small and round, some long and wispy, all moving along in their leisurely pace, oblivious to the world below. The land was coated with many plants, nourished by the small amounts of sunlight that managed to slip through the canopy above.  
  
The only man-made thing that was evident in this pristine environment was the two parallel lead tracks, making a slim but straight path through this otherwise undisturbed wilderness for the locomotives that would charge through time and time again, briefly disturbing the perfect harmony of the valley.  
  
Lyra watched through the train window as this forest was quickly replaced with open skies and endless farmland. Pantalaimon sat and watched as passengers walked by outside their compartment.  
  
Lyra had no idea what to expect as she and Pantalaimon headed to Dame Hannah's boarding school. Running around Jordan College when she was young, she had not been around many girls of her age, and she had no idea what would be important to other girls, what they would talk about. She knew what mattered to her, but she wouldn't be able to tell any of them anything. None of them would believe her. Even though she and Pan had this discussion before they ever agreed to go to, she still was worried.  
  
"Oh Pan, I miss Will. He would know what to do if he was here."  
  
In response, her dæmon just curled up closer to her. She stroked his fur and thought back to the times they had spent together.  
  
In reality, it had only been a month or so since she had said goodbye to Will at the botanical garden in his Oxford. She liked to remember him as he was when she first kissed him on that picnic in the world where they searched for their dæmons. She liked to remember his smile, his face, his deep clear eyes that could tell you a thousand things at once and still be mysterious. She knew that she would remember that look that he always gave her for the rest of her life.  
  
The train stopped, and she looked out the window to see the train station, and beyond, a castle, The Girl's Academe of Oxford. Other girls were getting off the train, moving in small groups, talking. They all turned their heads and stared though at this girl with a patched dress and stern eyes, and then they looked with surprise at Pantalaimon, a pine marten, walking with grace and fluency, mimicking his owner.  
  
The two crossed the square and moved toward the dorm that would be their home for the next few years.  
  
"Here we go, Pan," Lyra whispered as she walked into her room, occupied by two four-poster beds, carved nightstands and a pair of wardrobes. She marveled at the room that had things finer than she had ever dreamed in her entire life. She barely had time to set her stuff down and look around before it was time for her first class.  
  
Her classes were very different from the sparse tutoring she had received at Jordan College, and were much more difficult. When she was taught when she was young, the scholar that had happened to be stuck with her that week would mundanely quiz her on the very basics. Half the time, the scholar would forget what they were supposed to teach her, so she would be taught whatever they happened to be working on at the time. Needless to say, these lessons didn't last very long.  
  
"So class," said Professor Grollins, the arithmetic professor, whose parrot dæmon was flying around the room as Lyra entered and sat down, "Let's review what you learned last year in arithmetic. Let's start with square divisors. Who can tell me what the square divisor of 9 is? Let's see, Lyra, Lyra, how about you?"  
  
"I'm sorry, professor, but I don't know what a square divisor is."  
  
The brief outburst of laughter was quickly silenced by a loud squawk from the professor's dæmon.  
  
"Now class, Lyra comes to us from, less advanced schooling, and we should all just try to welcome her."  
  
I know ten times more than he does in things that really matter, Lyra thought as she and Pan exchanged a look, but she kept silent. Throughout the class, her ignorance came out even more, and slowly but surely she was identified as a target for teasing from the other girls, but she had taken worse, and certainly wasn't going to let those stupid kids aggravate her.  
  
After class a girl approached her who was about her age with a butterfly dæmon that quickly changed to a rabbit when she caught sight of Pantalaimon. He seemed pleased at the attention and respect.  
  
"Hi, I'm Danielle," she said timidly.  
  
"Lyra Asriel." She had dropped Belacqua long ago and Silvertongue was not something that the master of Jordan had let her use once she got back.  
  
"I'm sorry that everyone in our class has been so mean to you. They are always jerks to new kids."  
  
"Thanks. I've dealt with jerks like them before," Lyra said in a proud tone. "Are you the same Danielle that I'm rooming with?"  
  
"Yeah, my sister graduated last year, so I guess you have her bed. Well, talk to you tonight!"  
  
"Right! Oh, and do you know where English is? I'm lost."  
  
"That's my next class too. I'll walk you there."  
  
"This might not be so bad," she murmured to Pan as she followed Danielle across the crowded campus.  
  
Taking her seat, she was glad that she had been able to make a friend. She knew that she was going to need all the help she could get to get through this adventure.  
  
The rest of the day was more classes, more to learn, and more opportunities to show how behind she was. She was exhausted once she got back to her dorm that night.  
  
"Man, what a day. The kids here aren't very nice, eh?"  
  
"Well, not to people they don't know. So where did you go to school last?"  
  
"I didn't. The last schooling I had was some geography with my mother. I don't even know where she is now."  
  
"Well, then where were you last year?"  
  
"Oh, that's a really long story," Lyra said as she turned away. "But it's all bottled up inside, you know? I guess that it'd be good to tell it." She had been holding it in for weeks, for lack of someone to listen, so it was actually a welcome relief. "It's long though."  
  
"I'm all ears."  
  
(This is for people who haven't read the books. It's a summary of Golden Compass-Amber Spyglass. If you have and know the story, you can just skip ahead.)  
  
So Lyra started her story, all the way from the beginning, from that day in the retiring room at Jordan College and meeting her mother, Mrs. Coulter, getting the Alethiometer and the strange warning from the master of Jordan College, being taken away by Mrs. Coulter and escaping once she knew that her mother was involved in the kidnappings. She told Danielle about her weeks-long journey with the Gyptians, from the fens to the far north with Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrinson, and the horror when she went to Bolvangar and saw what the adults were doing there.  
  
"It was awful. On the way with Iorek, we saw a kid who'd had his dæmon cut away. It was horrible. It made you sick just looking at him."  
  
"That's horrible! They actually cut kid's dæmons away?"  
  
"Yup."  
  
Continuing on past her escape, Lyra recalled the cold balloon ride, her fall, and tricking Iofur Rankinson into single combat with Iorek. It got even harder to tell once she got to her betrayal of Roger, as she still thought of it. Danielle could tell that something in her demeanor had changed when she recounted meeting Will in Cittagazzé.  
  
"I knew immediately that he was special. I knew that I could count on him if I needed anything. You don't believe me about all this, do you?" Lyra said as she saw the expression on Danielle's face.  
  
"Oh yes I do!" Danielle exclaimed, but then lowered her voice as not to disturb anyone. "Stuff like that is too real and too fantastic to make up! It is a little hard to believe, but I trust you."  
  
"I'm glad somebody believes in me."  
  
She continued with that glimmer in her eye as she told about Will's fight for the subtle knife, how he had learned to cut holes between worlds, and how the witches had helped them escape from the orphans. Both of them were getting tired, but neither one wanted to admit it, Danielle being so captivated by Lyra's story, and Lyra who was telling the story easier now that she had started. Danielle especially wanted to know about Lyra's captivity in the Himalayas.  
  
"She kept me asleep the entire time, so I could only dream, and I could only dream of Roger, but it was more than a dream, it was real. I told Roger that I would escape and that Will and I would come and save him. He seemed like a ghost, which he actually was."  
  
Past the fight between the church and Lord Asriel's forces, past the breaking and re-forging of the knife, past meeting the Gallivespians, and further to their decision to go to the land of the dead.  
  
"Oh it was horrible. We came across to the land of the dead in a boat with an ages-old man (I'm not even sure that he was even a man) and we had to leave our dæmons behind. I was the only one of the four of us that actually could see my daemon, but I could tell that all of the others had also left something behind. But it was so much pain! It felt like my heart was coming right out of my chest. He sat on the shore, as small as he could be, and I just wanted with all my heart to jump back and go to him."  
  
"I felt the same way," Pantalaimon said. "It was the most painful thing I ever experienced. But we were not cut like the children at Bolvangar, just separated, like witches."  
  
"Wow," Danielle said, "So that means that you can go as far apart from each other as you want?" Her dæmon, now a rabbit, ran back to Danielle and snuggled in her pocket. "I can't imagine Brintes and me going far apart from each other."  
  
"It was hard, but the pain went away after a while. Once we got to the."  
  
And so Lyra and Danielle continued talking late into the night, further from the giant battle, and into the beautiful world where the dead would appear for all time. She had managed to stay relatively composed throughout the story until Lyra told of the day-long search for their dæmons and the picnic in the clearing, at which point she started to cry.  
  
"It's been hard to leave him behind," said Lyra as tears ran down her cheeks, "and I haven't been able to talk about it, so it's been all inside for such a long time. I understand that he had to break the knife, but it was hard to leave him. I can do it though. It burns inside, but I have to."  
  
"I'm so sorry for you Lyra," Danielle quietly said. "I know that I can't understand what you are going through, but I'd like to try and help. If you'd like to stop, then."  
  
"No, it's alright. I'm better off telling it and getting it off my chest." So Lyra continued with her story, telling about finding their dæmons and how Pan and Kirjava had told her about the awful effects of the knife, and how Will and Lyra made the infinitely hard decision to live their lives in their own worlds and leave the one window open for the dead to pass through. She continued through brief sobs to the botanic garden where she and will had spent their last minutes together, and to the last kiss between them.  
  
"Well," she said with a new smile on her face, "It feels good to tell that. What's wrong?"  
  
(Summary over)  
  
For this time it was Danielle that was crying, she was so touched by Lyra's story. In those brief hours, the two had grown to respect each other, Danielle for Lyra's incredible courage and effort in telling the story, and Lyra for Danielle's ability to listen and not judge, to hear and not doubt. They both knew that they would be fast friends.  
  
* * *  
  
Lord Asriel awoke to the smell of rotting corpses and the sound of footsteps hastily marching his way. He looked up and saw a regiment of King Ogunwe's troops scanning the bloody battlefield for any remaining signs of life. He tried to stand up and call out to them but he was too weak. The soldiers quickly gathered around and four began to carry him back to his fortress, walking as fast as they could across the body-strewn ground, littered with dead and worse than dead, those that had fallen victim to Specters. He saw one man, one of the elite soldiers who he had met before the battle, who had said that he was proud to fight the authority's tyrrany. The man just looked up blankly at the litter and soldiers as they passed, then turned back to the sky, and his eyes sliding shut in a macabre sleep.  
  
Once back in the adamant tower, he sent an orderly to find Mr. Basilides. Lord Ogunwe was already there, resting on a bandaged arm freshly wrapped from the battle, and surprised to see Lord Asriel. His dæmon was lying on the ground beside his lord. A doctor came in and bandaged Lord Asriel's leg, which looked like it was broken, and bandaged his head, still very sore from the crushing blow of that rock from Metatron. He still did not know how he survived. His last memory before waking up was him holding on to Metatron and the three of them, him, Metatron and Marisa, all falling together, before he blacked out and lost consciousness.  
  
"That will be all, thank you," he said as the doctor left. "Lord Ogunwe, what is our situation?"  
  
"We suffered severe losses to the forces of The Authority but we won the battle. The clouded mountain has withdrawn, and Metatron has been destroyed. We thought you were dead too sir. Even so, the death toll is rising to the ten thousands, and that's just of those whose bodies are left. There is no way to account for all the angelic losses. Many of all races are dead, but many also have been taken by specters. Those creatures are awful. Just seeing one up close was horrifying, especially when you see what they can do. Many of our soldiers are still alive on the field, but have no will to do anything anymore."  
  
"I can understand your sentiments. Thank you. Mr. Basilides, please sit down." The Alethiometer reader had just walked in, carrying the case of his books behind him and panting from the run up the stairs.  
  
"I would like you to begin on a few questions. First of all, I would like you to find the whereabouts of my daughter and her friend Will. Second, I would like you to ask about the fate of this Subtle Knife. Please begin at once."  
  
Mr. Basilides sat down and went to work immediately, his hands finding the right symbols, always writing down what the answer was as to look it up in the immense volumes pertaining to reading the Alethiometer later. Lord Asriel turned back to Lord Ogunwe and the two began to plan their next move in the battle against The Authority. 


	3. Chapter 2: Life Goes On

Here's my second chapter. Hope you enjoy! I'm sorry that I haven't written in a long time, but I hope you enjoy anyway. The rating has been upgraded, for violence, but nothing ugly. It's no longer going to be happy and cheerful, but enjoy anyway.  
  
Life goes On...  
  
Will walked down the street on that cold January day, aged not by the years since he had last traversed these street corners, but by what had happened to him in that time. He no longer tried to stay invisible, to not attract attention. He knew that he could deal with whatever this world had to throw at him.  
  
He hadn't heard from his mother, not that he was likely to. Since he had returned to his world, he had often thought about how his mother might no longer be stalked by the invisible demons, hoping that the angels would have destroyed all the specters.  
  
He walked up the lane that had once been familiar to him, avoiding the worries that accompanied the seemingly empty house, with weeds long overgrown, that he used to live in. He knew that Mrs. Cooper would not have sent his mother back. She was a kind woman. She would not abandon his mother.  
  
Until now, he had shut out the fears of losing his mother. Until now, seeing the door to Mrs. Cooper's house ajar and all the lights off, he had let himself believe that even after 2 years, his mother would be all right. Until now.  
  
He raced inside and began to search the house. There was no electricity, and everything in the fridge was rotten or moldy, or both. The house had obviously not been lived in for months, if not years. There was nothing for him to do, nowhere for him to turn for information on what had happened. His mother was lost, dead for all he knew, and there was nothing that he could do to help her.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
There was nothing on the horizon. All he could see was barren wasteland for miles on end. The slight hum of the gyropter brought him back from his daydream. Gregory was a man from a world unknown to Lyra or Will, who had heard of Lord Asriel's goal, and had eagerly joined the cause. He was willing to do anything for a cause that he saw was just, and indeed, had sacrificed much.  
  
Since he announced that he was going to take the journey between the worlds, his entire family, even his beloved wife of 10 years, had disowned him. The gyropter glided over the barren mountains and valleys of the battlefield- no, graveyard was a better term. Bodies of all different races, human, gallevispian, and others that the man had never heard of, lie dead or as good as dead on the field, killed or worse.  
  
The powers of the authority were defeated in the battle and left leaderless, but that didn't mean that they weren't still a serious threat. George was going to be there for as long as it would take. there was nothing for him at home to go back to, anyway.  
  
George was at the end of his patrol, and was looking forward to a hot mug of chocolatl and his hard bunk, his new home. That was what he was looking forward to going back to now, not his home or his family, but his cause, what he had given his entire life to support.  
  
He never saw the scout from the immense fleet of zeppelins rise up from a canyon behind him. His last thoughts were of his new home, and the cause he had given his life to protect. His gyropter fell from the sky in a burst of fire. The zeppelins continued on their journey, with an angelic escort. They were two hours away from the Basalt Fortress, and right on time. The operation was going just as planned.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Enjoy? It's short, but a cliffhanger. Stay tuned, readers! 


	4. Chapter 3: Dreams And Discoveries

Ok, here's chapter 3. I'm sorry I haven't written for so long, I've been really busy. I'll try to write one chapter a week or so from now on. Thanks to those of you who keep reviewing the story!  
  
Dreams and Discoveries  
  
Will ran down the long corridor, the fluorescent lights flashing over his head. He rushed up the stairs, almost knocking down a nurse that was coming down.  
  
"Hey! Watch where you're going, kid!"  
  
Will kept running, rushing past doctors and patients. He slowed down as he saw the room the attendant had told him was the right one. 3124. Looking through the small window in the door, he saw two beds, one was empty and the other was covered by tall curtains. Looking quickly behind him, he rushed into the room and shut the door quickly behind him.  
  
Will walked toward the bed with the curtains, walking slowly now. He reached his hand up to pull the curtain back, when the door opened quickly behind him. Spinning around, all he saw was a man pointing a pistol in his direction before.  
  
"WILL!" Lyra screamed as she awoke, sweating and breathing hard. Pantalaimon walked out of bed and began pacing. Quickly, she got up from her bed and walked out of her room. Opening the bathroom door, she turned on the light and poured water from the pump and began to wash her face. She looked in the mirror at her terrorized expression.  
  
"It was just a dream, Pan."  
  
"Yeah, just a dream about Will having a gun in his face!"  
  
"Well, what do you want me to do about it? Worry all night? I'm sure that it was just a dream. Besides, Will can take care of himself."  
  
"I know you're worried about him Lyra."  
  
Ignoring Pan, she walked back to her bed, pulled up the covers, and turned toward her wall.  
  
"Lyra?"  
  
"Yes?" A light next to her roommate's bed turned on.  
  
"Are you alright?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bad dream, that's all."  
  
"Ok, well." The light shut off, and soon Lyra could hear steady breathing from the bed next to her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't go back to sleep.  
  
~ ~~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~~ ~  
  
What else can I do?  
  
Paul, the theologian that had been assigned to study the fossil, had nothing more that he could do. He had studied and examined what looked like a piece of a prehistoric knife over and over, and was at a loss for what else he could examine about it.  
  
But of course, the Consortial Court wants results.  
  
He looked around the basement that had become his home for. well, he wasn't even sure anymore how long it had been. At least two weeks. There was a guard at the door that brought him food as often as he wanted it, but he was still a prisoner, and would stay that way until he really had something for the court.  
  
Carefully, Paul picked up the shard, and carefully looked it over. Suddenly filled with rage at the unfairness of the court, he brought the shard back to throw it against the far wall of his basement cell. Suddenly, he felt a breeze and cool air on his face. He stopped before throwing the shard and looked toward the breeze. He saw a thin line of blue, and slowly reached for it. He stuck his finger through the small rectangle and wondered how he suddenly had a window.  
  
This must be a shard of the. Oh my god! I've got to tell the court!!! Wait. I have to know exactly how to open these windows before I tell them.  
  
He walked around the window, and saw that you could only see it looking straight on, because as he moved around, he could no longer see it. Now to make another one to prove it wasn't a fluke.  
  
At random, Paul began slashing at the air, and then realized that he wasn't going to get anywhere doing that. Walking over to his cot, he sat down and thought about what he was doing when he opened the window. He had been concentrating on it, so he tried concentrating and moving the knife back and forth. Every once in a while, he felt a place in the air where the knife cut. The first few times, he lost his concentration and the spot disappeared.  
  
The next time, he kept his state of mind and began to cut at the place with the sharp edge of the knife. and nothing happened.  
  
Wait. As I brought it back, it was the fine edge, not the sharp one that was moving.  
  
He tried again, this time with the other edge, and was rewarded with a window revealing a mountain range. He could feel the cold wind blowing through. In his excitement, he forgot about trying to close it, and packed the shard away in it's special box, rushing up the stairs to tell the guard to release him.  
  
~ ~~ ~~~ ~ ~~~ ~~ ~  
  
Well, there's more to come, I guarantee that! Please, if you take the time to read it, please review the story. Thanks a bunch! 


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